My documentary Pinkwashing Exposed: Seattle Fights Back! (1 hour long) came out in the summer of 2015. You can watch the entire film on the website and you can watch with captions in English, Spanish or Greek captions (Mandarin is coming soon!).
We also made short clips that address particular topics that are easy to share. These include “What is Pinkwashing?”“What is Brand Israel?” and “What is Normalization?” I put all of these and the full documentary online hoping that people will do free screenings in their own communities and on their campuses. I am happy to report that the documentary has already screened at festivals and community events around the United States and in Canada, Argentina, Japan, Korea, Greece, Holland and in the UK. It is playing on Cambridge Community Television tomorrow! You can read a review of the Pinkwashing Exposed in the recent issue of Make/Shift magazine.
Last month, The Scholar and the Feminist Online published a special issue co-edited by Soniya Munshi and Craig Willse, entitled “Navigating Neoliberalism in the Academy, Non-Profits and Beyond.” It is full of great articles and I highly recommend the whole issue. It includes a new article I co-wrote with Dr. Rori Rohlfs called “Legal Equality and the (After?)Math of Eugenics” that looks critically at the proliferation of new statistics about LGBT populations and how they are used in legal reform efforts. The special issue also includes six more short videos in the series that Hope Dector and I are making as part of our Queer Dreams and Nonprofit Blues project.
Finally, in November I participated in an Oxford Union Debate about whether states should recognize marriage. It was probably among the most uncomfortable events of my life, not only because I was wearing a tuxedo but also because I was on the “same side” of the debate with a raging zionist and a raging transphobe. Still not sure what to make of all that, but if you want to see what I said, here is the video.
On January 12, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force issued an apology for including a panel by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the program of the upcoming Creating Change Conference. Familia: Trans Queer Liberation Movement, an organization that fiercely opposes the violence of immigration enforcement and has been part of the inspiring national #Not1More anti-deportation campaign, issued a response to the NGLTF apology: Apology Not Accepted. Familia refused NGLTF’s weak acknowledgement after the uproar that ICE’s inclusion in the conference had caused. The problem with ICE being on the Creating Change program is not just that it makes people feel unsafe (it is a no-brainer that you shouldn’t invite ICE to events where you want immigrant activists to be able to participate), it’s that ICE is a massive source of violence in the lives of queer and trans people and an institution that queer and trans activists are trying to end. Inviting ICE to participate in the conference suggests that there is some kind of collaboration sought, or that ICE can show up and be “LGBT-friendly.” Familia called out the reality that by including ICE, NGLTF ignored and rejected the clear anti-deportation, anti-immigration enforcement politics and strategy that has been articulated by queer and trans immigrant activists. We are not fighting for a gay-friendly border, a gay-friendly immigration prison or immigration raid. The only way for queer and trans immigrants to be safe is if raids, detentions, deportations and everything else ICE does ends.
There is another controversy brewing on the Creating Change program that presents a similar dynamic. The Israel advocacy organization, A Wider Bridge, is hosting a shabbat service and reception at Creating Change. A Wider Bridge aims to connect LGBT people in the US with Israel and promote the image of Israel as an LGBT tourism destination. It coordinates tours funded by the Israeli Consulate bringing LGBT Israelis to the US to talk about gay politics in Israel, it hosted a conference with many US LGBT leaders last summer in Israel and had those leaders participate in Gay Pride in Tel Aviv, it promotes Israeli-government funded films that portray Israel as a haven for gay rights in which Palestinians seek refuge, and it brings tours of LGBT people from the US to Israel. Its website proudly announces that it “led the LGBT contingent in New York’s Celebrate Israel Parade, and . . . marched with the Israeli Consulate in the New York Pride Parade.”
Queer and trans activists who are working to oppose Israeli colonialism and apartheid call this propaganda work “pinkwashing.” For over a decade, the Israeli government has been engaged the “Brand Israel” campaign, aimed to respond to the growing movement against apartheid in Israel by portraying Israel as “relevant and modern.” An important part of this effort has been to promote Israel as a gay-friendly country, touting the fact that gay people are allowed to serve in its brutal military and promoting Israel as a gay tourism destination. This message relies on Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism as Israel contrasts its supposed “gay-friendliness” with stereotypes of its homophobic neighbors, particularly portraying Palestinians as homophobic. Queer and trans activists around the world who oppose occupation and apartheid have called this propaganda strategy “pinkwashing” because it is a direct effort to conceal the extreme violence and harm that Israel inflicts on Palestinians, including queer and trans Palestinians, by promoting Israel as “gay friendly.”
In 2012, activists in Seattle got to know A Wider Bridge and its pinkwashing activities very intimately when A Wider Bridge partnered with the homophobic, right-wing organization Stand WithUs to bring an Israeli Consulate-sponsored pinkwashing tour to Seattle. Queer and trans Seattle activists pushed back, exposed the propaganda and got a planned tour event at Seattle City Hall canceled. We faced a very unpleasant backlash and made a film about our story (which you can watch for free online).
We made this film in hopes that it will help queer and trans people and people who care about queer and trans people to read and interpret propaganda that tries to play on our movements’ messaging to build PR for violent governments and institutions. Clearly, the organizers of Creating Change need some help with this–ICE and A Wider Bridge ended up on the program because they packaged themselves as dialoguing about LGBT issues. This is the new normal–police departments, prisons, the military, immigration enforcement and politicians and nefarious governments are all branding themselves as progressive, liberal and right-on with talking points about LGBT inclusion, meanwhile continuing their murderous work that harms queer and trans people and cannot be aligned with our liberation. When left movements across the US are calling attention to the racist violence of the immigration and criminal punishment systems, when more and more organizations are adopting resolutions to boycott and divestfrom Israel and the prison industry, queer and trans organizations have to get sharp about not becoming fig leaves or propaganda sites for institutions scrambling to prop up their tarnished images as their violence is exposed.
My regret about our film, Pinkwashing Exposed: Seattle Fights Back! is that we did not focus enough on A Wider Bridge. At the time, it made sense to focus on how Stand With Us co-coordinated the events, because they are such an obvious right wing Israel advocacy organization which an insincere interest in queer issues that is only about the propaganda opportunities for Israel. It seemed like focusing on Stand With Us made the pinkwashing more obvious. In the months that followed the completion of the film, it became clear to me that we should have also focused on A Wider Bridge, whose pinkwashing strategy is more insidious. Many people who would be suspicious of explicit Israel advocacy because they have some vague sense that Palestinians are suffering under occupation are swept up in the friendly images of gay Israelis sharing their experiences and inviting people from the US to visit. Many people who know nothing about the occupation are learning about Israel from an Israel propaganda organization and not realizing it because it seems like a gay organization. A Wider Bridge denies that it is engaged in pinkwashing, but there is nothing secret about it being an Israel advocacy organization. It is not an organization focused on LGBT Jews, or an organization focused on LGBT Israelis, it is an organization focused on linking LGBT people in the US to Israel, the settler colonial nation engaged in apartheid, condemned by the world. It is an organization whose promotion of Israel is designed to make people think of Israel as a site of liberation and freedom rather than a regime producing colonization and genocide. As a Jewish trans activist who has sometimes attended Creating Change over the years, I like the idea of having a Shabbat service at the conference, but I do not want Creating Change to invite any Israel advocacy organization to lead it or host programming focused on promoting propaganda about Israel.
I believe that the organizers of Creating Change intend for the conference to be a place of progressive queer and trans politics–they would not want it sponsored by Wal-Mart, featuring workshops by gay climate change deniers, celebrating the leadership of gay conservatives. Over the years, there have been many, many controversies in which activists have called out the failures of the conference to live up to its progressive aims–most frequently regarding issues that impact queer and trans people of color. That is an important process and the work that activists have done to raise hell at Creating Change has forging new collaborations, changed queer and trans politics, and even changing the conference in some ways. Pinkwashing is now a ubiquitous and effective strategy for harmful institutions to promote a false image of themselves, and queer and trans activists have to sharpen our ability to discern it and hold organizations like NGLTF that purport to cultivate queer and trans liberation accountable when they partner with pinkwashers. The organizers who exposed the ICE participation in Creating Change won an important victory over pinkwashing by getting ICE taken off the program. Now NGLTF needs to take an active role in preventing pinkwashing of Israel at this year’s conference.
[Image from leaflet handed out by Gay Shame activists at Creating Change 2005 in Oakland.]
Thanks to the hard work of many people at Duke University Press, Normal Life is back in print after the tragic closing of South End Press last summer. Look for a second edition of Normal Life with new writing about pinkwashing, the mainstreaming of trans politics, Chelsea Manning and more this fall from Duke. For now, enjoy the new greener color scheme on the cover of the first edition.
Please watch and share the three videos below that I made in collaboration with the Barnard Center for Research on Women and the Columbia Center for Gender and Sexuality Law. During our Fall 2013 conference, Queer Dreams and Nonprofit Blues, Hope Dector and I interviewed dozens of activists and scholars about the themes from the conference. These are the first three videos from the collection we are making. We hope that these bring the critiques so many of us have learned deeply from put out by INCITE!, CUAV, The Audre Lorde Project, FIERCE!, SRLP, the Young Women’s Empowerment Project and others to life in short videos that are easy to distribute and use in activist groups and classrooms.
Slide 1: A torso of a shirtless man and a woman in a red silky neglige, he is grabbing her waist and she appears to be pulling up her skirt. The text says : Temptation too powerful to resist: The Romance Myth.
Slide 2: Image of Tom Cruise delivering the famous line from “Jerry Maguire”: “I love you. You…complete me.” Text below says: “Romantic love is EXCLUSIVE! If it’s real, you won’t find anyone else attractive or get crushes on anyone else.”
Slide 3: Image of Edward and Bella laying in the meadow staring at each other from Twilight movie. “You don’t know how long I’ve waited for you…I’d rather die than be away from you.” Text says “Obsession, jealousy and possession are natural and ok. It mean’s he likes you. When its real it should last forever and lead to marriage and happily ever after.”Slide 4: Shows book cover of a book called “Catch Him and Keep Him: A Woman’s Guide to Finding Mr. Right… And Keeping Him for Good!” Text says: “Compete with others to gain romantic attention from desirable partners. Women must be willing and adventurous to keep men, but if a woman enjoys sex or pursues it she’s a slut. Women should give up everything for their kids and husbands or they are selfish.”
Slide 5: Still from the Little Mermaid movie of Ariel in the sea talking to her friends. Text says: “To get romance, women must be skinny, sexy and able to perform every cultural fantasy about femininity and submission, yet also independent and confident.”
Slide 6: Image of a couple in the ocean together with the setting sun behind them about to kiss that says “Stalking Love.” Text says: “What the Romance Myth Feeds: Dependence & Resentment & Cheating & Domestic Violence.. 30% of relationships, queer and straight alike, include domestic violence.”
Slide 7: Background is the cover of a women’s magazine that says in large letters “Flatten your belly.” Text says: “Research shows that 80% of women are unhappy with what they see when they look in the mirror. That makes sense because the current media ideal for women’s bodies is achievable by less than 5% of women in terms of weight and size. Top models weigh 23% less than the average woman. Eating disorders are the third most common chronic illness among women. 81% of 10-yr-old girls in the US have dieted at least once. The single largest group of high school students considering or attempting suicide are girls who feel they are overweight.”
Slide 8: Background is a scene from the Simpsons with Marge cleaning while Homer sleeps on the couch and Bart runs through the room after the dog. Text says: “Economic vulnerability (especially for women)–one partner coerced into unpaid domestic labor, often can’t get out of relationship because of loss of job experience and earning potential”
Slide 9: Image of a celebrity wedding with woman in traditional dress and veil and man in white tuxedo. Text says: “WHO BENEFITS? The $40 billion wedding industry.The $38 billion hair industry. The $33 billion diet industry. The $24 billion skincare industry. The $18 billion makeup industry. The $15 billion perfume industry.The $13 billion cosmetic surgery industry.”
Slide 10: Image from The Wizard of Oz with Dorothy finding the Wizard behind the current. Text says: Dispel the Romance Myth!
This week a new article by me and Craig Willse went up on Organizing Upgrade that aims to capture some of the important left critiques of marriage that have been obscured by the pro-marriage messages of same-sex marriage advocacy.
![[Image by Micah Bazant]](http://www.deanspade.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/pinkwash-flat.jpg)
